Frank Lloyd Wright:

Architect of the American

Family

When Wright passed away in 1959,
Simon & Garfunkel's tribute
(attention: this sound bite takes time to load)
to him appeared alongside immortal tunes such as "The Boxer" and "Cecilia" on the
"Bridge Over Troubled Water" album. The song is
perhaps a testament to the astounding popularity (or at least name
recognition) of the man behind buildings like the
Guggenheim Museum ,
the Robie House ,
and Fallingwater .
Perhaps even more than these buildings, Wright's construction of the public figure "Frank Lloyd Wright" is responsible
for his fame.
As he became a
celebrity figure, Wright came to recognize his power to affect
his public image and the public consumption of his ideas. His
homes reflect his persona, just as his persona was part of
the success of his buildings. Through
the power of the architect, concrete and steel were somehow
transformed into tangible representations of himself and especially
his vision of the American family.

The extent to which Wright's clients, and the
American society in general, "bought" this persona is a window
into a cultural phenomenon: the public consumption of an icon. As
Wright passed in and out of style in the housing marketplace, his
reputation played a large roll in shaping this public perception.
Public approval or disapproval of Wright's designs increasingly
reflected their judgement of Wright's
personal actions. There is a direct correlation between the
fluctuations in Wright's personal reputation and the public attitudes
toward his architectural designs.

To reveal this interplay between Wright and the American
public, Wright's career can be dissected into three phases,
which each correspond to a particular style of
architecture which he offered as his vision of the American
family: the prairie home, Wright's own Taliesin I, and the
Usonian home. In viewing these three designs, we see two
major changes
in Wright's "marketing strategy." While the
prairie home stood upon the integrity of its own design,
Wright's own persona became more and more intertwined
with his designs. In the end, Wright's homes were popular in
their ability to capture the mass appeal of Wright's personality, not his design ingenuity.

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Descriptions of the styles listed above can be viewed by clicking on the
periods listed below: